This is an interesting way to
call the Republicans' bluff:
The staff of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the committee that oversees FAA, said in an email that Democrats hope to bring a bill to end the shutdown to the Senate floor as early as Monday night.
They said the bill will go farther than the House has proposed in cutting rural air service subsidies.
Republicans, of course, don't really care much about the $16.5 million in rural air service subsidies that they had claimed were the principle over which the FAA has been partially shut down for 10 days. That was always a weapon to either get Democrats to accept a profoundly antidemocratic anti-union measure or to pin the shutdown on Democrats defending wasteful spending.
So let's see how they answer Rockefeller's proposal—will they pivot seamlessly back to the anti-union angle, or will they accept at least a short-term reauthorization that could reopen the FAA before the August recess? And how will the traditional media outlets that have accepted the idea that the shutdown was about rural air subsidies cover this?
2:56 PM PT: Rockefeller said he might introduce the bill as soon as Monday night—but will that be soon enough? According to ThinkProgress:
Now, with Congressional leaders seemingly close to ending their fight over the debt ceiling, House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced today that the House will begin its August recess after it votes on the debt deal later today. That means the FAA shutdown, which began July 22, will likely last at least another month.
Democrats on the House Transportation Committee are outraged, as Reps. Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Jerry Costello (D-IL) called the recess “irresponsible” and said they planned to write a letter to Cantor calling on him to keep the House in session until the FAA was re-authorized.
A letter, though, is hardly going to pay the salaries of furloughed FAA employees and laid-off construction workers.